


This is Just a Queen's Gambit AU

by insearchofamonstergirlfriend



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Queen's Gambit (TV), Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, F/M, Gen, Inspired by The Rigel Black Chronicles, RBC Masquerade 2021, drabbles?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28586943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insearchofamonstergirlfriend/pseuds/insearchofamonstergirlfriend
Summary: This is essentially The Queen's Gambit but our beloved RBC characters.
Relationships: Caelum Lestrange/Harriet Potter | Rigel Black, Harriet Potter | Rigel Black/Aldon Rosier, Lionel "Leo" Hurst & Harriet Potter | Rigel Black
Comments: 13
Kudos: 53
Collections: Rigel Black Chronicles Masquerade 2021





	This is Just a Queen's Gambit AU

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea before FF13 dropped, and then _that_ chess conversation happened and it fit all too well with what I had planned.
> 
> This might not make sense if you haven't watched The Queen's Gambit. Also, it will spoil you for that show.
> 
> Finally, this is part of the RBC Masquerade 2021, which I highly recommend joining because it seems to be terribly great fun!

“What are you doing?”

The janitor’s attention was drawn up from the board at her question. “What are you doing down here?” He responded in kind.

Harriet Potter, known as Harry to her friends (if she’d had any) drew herself up and took a step closer to him. “Cleaning the erasers.” She nodded to the board. “What is that?”

It took two weeks to convince him to teach her, but she took to it swiftly and within just a few months, he–Mr. Lupin–invited a man to the basement for her to play chess against. She defeated him resoundingly.

* * *

Later when she was out of the orphanage, she yearned for the game, that simple world of 64 squares. To fill the void, she found a tournament in the paper. It was five pounds to enter, and she reached out to the man who had taught her this game.

_Mr. Lupin,_

_There’s a tournament here, I would like to compete in. The entry fee is five pounds, but I don’t have that money. I was hoping I might borrow it from you, and if I win, I’ll send you back ten pounds._

_Thank you,_

_Harry Potter_

His response came immediately.

* * *

The twins didn’t believe she was capable yet, but they would. Taking the paper to record her moves from the one named Fred, she walked away and into the room the tournament was taking place in.

It was nothing special, but compared to the basement, it was overwhelming. Harry turned in a slow circle, taking it all in, before she walked up to the board to see who she was matched up against.

A girl. Apparently the only other girl at the tournament. Harry couldn’t help bristling slightly at that. Did they not think either of them were good enough?

* * *

Harry defeated her easily. If she felt bad, the feeling left immediately when she put the paper with her name circled into the basket in front of the twins.

“So who am I up again next?”

“That would be me.”

She turned and craned her neck to look at the handsome but entirely too tall fellow in front of her.

“And you are?”

“Lionel Hurst.” He held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

They walked to their designated chess board and when start time was indicated, he looked at her and asked, “would you like to start my clock?”

* * *

“That’s Rosier.”

After she defeated Lionel Hurst, he had stuck by her side. “He’s the champion.”

Harry narrowed her eyes and watched him make a move against his current opponent. She could beat him.

And the next day, she did. He’d arrived late, perhaps because he underestimated her on account of her gender, perhaps for some other just as unsatisfactory reason, and that was part of his downfall.

It wasn’t quite as satisfactory as she would have hoped, but still she had won. No one had expected her to win one match, let alone all of them, but she had.

* * *

“You messed up in your game against Rosier.”

Harry stopped and stared at Caelum Lestrange. “What?”

“If he hadn’t arrived so late, if he had been more aware, he would have won.” After he pointed it out, she stayed frozen there, and he walked away. Then, she rushed to a table and replayed the match.

No. That couldn’t be right. Could it? Again and again, she walked through it. Again and again, she saw the mistake and it haunted her.

And so she was scattered when she came to play against him.

But maybe she just wasn’t good enough anyway.

* * *

Her loss against Lestrange -- her first loss -- had made them co-champions. It wasn’t enough.

Despite her best efforts, she continued to fail. Grandmaster Snape was next. He scared her even before she took him on, and afterwards, well, all she could do was stare at the board.

He was metres and metres ahead of her and there was nothing she could do but practice more, train more, devote more of her life to the game. It was what he did too, what all of them did. She ate, drank, and breathed chess. The dreams and nightmares came hand in hand.

* * *

At one point, Rosier showed up at her doorstep. It was weird to see him again, but weirder still his declaration of… love?

She couldn’t say she returned his feelings, but sleeping with him was a nice break from the chess.

Sometimes they played against each other, but she so clearly outmatched him and she could tell he didn’t care.

The way he didn’t care, was now just a grocery bagger, sometimes filled her with such bitterness and resentment she could hardly stand to see him.

So when he finally packed up and left, she was sad but also relieved.

* * *

Her rematch against Lestrange didn’t occur for a year. But when it did, she was ready. When it did, she _won_.

Walking out of the university the tournament had been held at, Lestrange looked at her. “If you want to defeat Snape, you’ll need a teacher.”

Harry wrinkled her nose. She’d gotten this far without one, hadn’t she?

She didn’t say yes just yet, but still later that night, they fell into bed together. It was good but not as good as chess, not as good as defeating him.

A few weeks later, she gave in and accepted his offer.

* * *

Maybe she was ready, maybe she wasn’t. She’d never know. The tournament was fine until the last match, the match where she went against the Grandmaster.

She woke that day to knocking on her door. Her head panged and she looked at the body in the bed beside her in confusion a moment before rocketing up and throwing on a random dress. She barreled past the kind soul knocking on her door and down the hallway into the elevator.

The match did not go well.

She arrived home in a daze, and then it got worse.

“Mr. Lupin is dead.”

* * *

The wall. Harry could do nothing but stare at it. There was the letter she’d sent him (she’d never thanked him for that, never sent back the money), newspaper clippings, photographs. The wall told the story of her whole chess career. He’d been following her the whole time. There was the polaroid of the two of them, taken after she’d defeated her first opponent who wasn’t him. Oh god. This whole time. Harry sank into a chair, _his_ chair, the chair he had taught her this game from. He’d changed her whole entire life, and he deserved so much better.

* * *

Too soon the tournament in Moscow had arrived and Harry was flying to Russia, feeling just slightly empty. She’d almost given up, but that would be a failure to Mr. Lupin’s memory.

She _would_ do this, she _would_ win, and she _would_ let everyone know it was Mr. Lupin who had taught her and brought her into this magical world of chess. If people knew her name, they should know his too.

Her heart panged as she thought of the wall. All that, and she’d barely gave him a second thought, hadn’t even seen him since she left the orphanage.

* * *

Grandmaster Thompson wasn’t what she had expected. Eccentric, definitely, was a word to describe him, but he was more than that too. He had a specific energy about him. It was nerve-wracking but terribly exciting, and so their game turned out to be.

It went on for hours, with the pair of them having to come back the next day after an adjournment.

But in the end, she won, and he bowed and thanked her. It was one of the best games of her life.

When Harry walked away, Grandmaster Snape left his (in progress!) game to study her board.

* * *

She stared at the board, finally made a decision. But on Snape’s turn, he called an adjournment. Harry was frozen, watching him. It didn’t make any sense. He was winning. Why had he done that?

Her handler escorted her down the hallway and she ignored all the reporters until a familiar voice rang out, belonging to a friend she hadn’t seen in years.

Immediately, she ran and hugged him. “Leo! What are you doing here?”

In her room, they fell to the couch, easy conversation flowing between them.

And then the phone rang, and Lionel Hurst, her dear friend, smiled.

* * *

It was a mess at first. All of them -- Rosier, George, Fred, and Lestrange -- talking over one another, trying to impart their advice. But then it fell into an easy rhythm. Harry stared at Leo as she listened and moved the pieces on her chessboard. It almost hurt, to know she was this cared about, that they believed in her like this and wanted her to succeed.

They ran scenario after scenario, considered all the moves and ways they thought this game could end and how she should respond until there was nothing left to do but sleep and hope.

* * *

Snape made a move she hadn’t prepared for, none of them had prepared for, and she almost cried. She’d worked so hard, come so far. She just couldn’t fail now.

Harry closed her eyes, remembered Mr. Lupin, remembered the basement and that simple chessboard, remembered the way she had defeated that stranger he’d brought in, remembered the way it had felt to play chess back before the pressure, back before the audiences, when it was just her against Mr. Lupin.

The pieces moved in her mind like they had then, moved while she sought out the perfect way to respond.

* * *

“Draw?” Snape offered, and Harry’s eyes snapped up to meet him. She considered it a moment before she shook her head. No, that wasn’t good enough, not for her, and not for Mr. Lupin.

They would play this out to its conclusion, whatever that may be.

A sacrificed queen. A check made with a rook. A promoted pawn.

And then,

a resignation.

“It’s your game.” Snape took the black king in his hand and held it out to her. “Take it.”

Harry squeezed his hand, they both stood, and while the crowd applauded, he pulled her into a firm hug.

* * *

Inside the grand tournament room, Leo stood among the crowd, applauding and grinning.

Several thousand kilometres away, Lestrange picked up the phone, listened a mere second, then nodded to his companions. They burst into celebration, jumping and slapping each other on the back as they hugged. Harriet Potter had become the world champion.

Harry stopped on her way out the door only to give the reporters a single remark. “Note this: I owe this all to Mr. Remus Lupin. Years ago, he taught me the game.”

And then she stepped out into the cold Russian evening to face everyone else.


End file.
